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There's no particular point to this post - just wanted share something interesting that I happened to stumble upon. $800 for a non-Stadium Events/NWC cart seems ridiculous to me, yet Dino Peak sits as the highest priced/valued licensed NES game on the current market.

This is why I want someone to make reproduction carts that are CLEARLY MARKED as reproductions. Give me a black cartridge that looks like an inverted NES cart with a near identical label. I would dish out $30 for a reproduction of this game because there's no way in hell that I could ever justify spending $800 on a single cart (and the odds of finding it in the wild is near zilch).

I know /gc hates this idea and they usually tell me to just get one of the retrozone all-in-one carts but that's just not the same. I want a cart per game (even if it's a repo).</rant>

That... isn't how collectibles work. There are more collectors of Nintendo than there are copies of "Surprise at Dinosaur Peak." Demand exceeds supply, so the price will continue to rise. There is no such thing as a "rational price" for a collectible, because there is no intrinsic value. Therefore, we have a situation where there is no corrective factor for prices (i.e. wising up). What you consider an insane or ridiculous price others consider a great deal. (I remember seeing a thread where the guy who got that Dino Peak was bragging about his great find.) This is the reality of game collecting for quite some time. Don't expect prices to drop on any actually rare game. Also, don't think your judgement of what people should or should not be paying has any affect on their economic decision.

As an aside, I try to stay emotionally detached from prices. It is better to step back, see what is happening, and accept it, rather than hold some false hope that collectors will become "rational actors." Prices on select, truly rare games will not come down, even as the entire collectable video game market crashes. In the long run, getting upset about prices does you far more harm than the people paying high prices.

I come from the standpoint where I refuse to accept prices if it was 1 or 2 idiots who paid too much.

That would be like if a bidding war happened and based on that ending price, people assumed that is the current price (which actually does happen and I am too lazy to get examples right now, but I am sure they are not hard to find).

Just because some people are not very smart and spend too much on something does not mean that is what it is worth.

And as for me getting upset with prices, you bet your sweet, glimmering ass I get upset over prices. I am probably one of the very slim few people I know as a collector that actually has the disposable income to buy anything I want (inheritance from my father passing last year). Just because I can afford it does not mean I should drop the coin for it. That is retarded.

If somebody is dropping big dollar amounts when they shouldn't, yeah, they fucked up. We tell people all the time in /r/gc itself if somebody overpaid. Should we now stop doing that since, technically, it is impossible to overpay for something according to that mindset?

No, if you pay too much for something, you pay too much. If you are happy with it, right on, but that does not mean that you got a good deal. You can be more than happy overpaying and fuck it, more power to you, but that does not mean the item is now worth that.

And yes, there is a "rational price" for some of this shit. If I dropped $1000 on a loose Sonic 2 and was happy with it, then, according to what people think, regardless of supply or demand (as EarthBound jumping in price has shown) that, according to the "it is worth what people will pay for it", then Sonic 2 should now sell for $1000 because I was an idiot.

Sure, some rare games will have special exceptions, but some of the prices, even for rare games, are fucking insane (I am looking at Sculptor's Cut. I mean, over $1000 for an instruction book? fucking seriously?).

Screw that. If somebody overpays for something, it is my job as a fellow internet goer to tell them that.

First of all, you are misusing "rational price." It is an economics term based on the intrinsic value of an item. Think of a piece of gold jewelry - it can be melted down, and sold as pure weight gold - that is it's intrinsic value, so it has a "rational price." A video game is around $0.10 of raw material. So, anything spent above that is considered above rational price.

If somebody is dropping big dollar amounts when they shouldn't, yeah, they fucked up. We tell people all the time in /r/gc itself if somebody overpaid. Should we now stop doing that since, technically, it is impossible to overpay for something according to that mindset?

The problem with this logic, is "we" tell them they fucked up based on the idea of a fair market value, not "rational price." Like it or not, the fair market value for Flintstones is $600-900. So, this isn't one or two idiots paying too much. This is a routinely established market price. If someone paid $600-900 for Chrono Trigger loose, yeah, they fucked up, because it has an established fair-market value price of around $60-90.

Also, from our past discussions, you've always used the phrase "bidding war" as if there is some distinction between auctions that are wars, and those that are not. Every eBay and goodwill auction is equivalent. People put the highest price they are willing to pay, and the auction goes to the person willing to pay the highest. There is no such distinction.

Don't get me wrong, from a personal perspective, I agree with you, some of these prices for pieces of paper or cardboard are just beyond fucking stupid. The thing is, I realize that is an internal valuation that isn't applicable to the market as a whole. You have to step back and realize that it is your own internalization of what things are worth. Unless you say every cartridge is worth $0.10, you are also an "irrational actor." It all just becomes degrees at that point.

As you can see, I used "rational price" as "a rational person would pay that price, which means it is a rational price".

Also, who in the fuck would drop $900 for something that has clearly sold for $400?

I use bidding wars as examples because when you are in a bidding war, it becomes less of what your personal limit is, and more of "how high you can get the price". I know it sounds stupid and weird, but I have been in a bidding war. When you are done, it is not a matter of what I was willing to pay. I was trying to beat out the other guy in order to own the item. I was not thinking clearly. It is a different state of mind, like drugs and alcohol. It truly is. You think differently in a bidding war, and, most of the time, you are not thinking rationally.

In a bidding war, you will make horrible mistakes and pay far above what you want to pay. That is like saying that a person with gambling addiction should not be helped since, well, they made the mistake of getting money from the ATM, so what they drop is clearly what they wanted to gamble, so we should feel no remorse for them.

A bidding war is similar. You get in to a mindset that you truly just want that item and stop thinking about how much it costs and keep trying to outbid everybody even after you have reached your max.

That is why I use it as an example. It is very relevant to pricing and when people price shit based off of bidding wars, then everybody gets fucked over.

If the lowest you can get something is $400 and you want it, then you will pay it. It does not mean that is what it should go for, that just means you fucked up and paid too much, but if you buy from eBay, you need to expect a "premium"

I am trying to point that that just because somebody pays X amount for item A does not mean for one moment that it is worth that.

EDIT: Like the Flinstones game. That shit fluctuates between $400 and $900. What is the value of it? Is it $400 or is it $900? Should we count the high end as what it goes for when, chances are, it was a bidding war? should we count the low end (what people paid at Goodwill for it?

If you look at the charts and trends, it looks like it is about a $400 game. That is what people pay for it, and the fluctuations are either people who made a bad purchasing decision (good for you if your are happy with it, but that does not mean you got it on a deal) or something who got a great deal.

EDIT 2: In bidding wars, if they get done and we just sit back and say, "Yeah, good job. That is what the item goes for now. Good deal dude" then all we are doing is supporting this and allowing it to happen, which is not good for anybody except the seller

As long as collectors continue to pay these prices they will only grow higher. It's hard to avoid with such rare games, but even commons are getting a little out if control. What I want to know, where do these wealthy collectors come from? I've never thrown more than the ball park of $100 for anything in my collection, if I could just toss around $800 like that I'd be coming away with more

Yeah I understand that, I'm in the same boat. I'm nearly 30 and have a pretty well paying job. I have a little disposable income, but I can't bring myself to spend that much. I feel like buying in that manner kind of takes the merit of going out and finding a surprise at dinosaur peak or little Samson for $5. To each their own I suppose but I enjoy finding the deals